FRANZ KAFKA

 Kafka is a German-speaking Czech novelist and studied in Prague. He is Jewish. There are so many novelists in the world but what is special about Kafka? 

His work fuses realism, the fantastic and the absurd. His works explored “Surrealism” which is an art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists allowed the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike scenes and ideas

He explores the themes of alienation (the feeling of disconnection from a social group that being friends, family or wider society), existential anxiety, guilt and absurdity. His well-known works include “The Metamorphosis”, “The Trial;” & “The Castle”. English language got a new term on account of him: “KAFKAESQUE” to represent absurd situations like the ones he represented in his writing. 

Kafkas father was a “Shochet” or a ritual slaughterer of some animals and birds for food according to Jewish tradition. 

His brothers died in infancy and the 3 sisters of Kafka were murdered in the Holocaust in World War II. Kafka’s father was a dominant character and authoritarian, which had an impression on Kafka’s personality and his writings. 

Kafka was a lawyer and he was employed by an Insurance Company. He never married and died at the age of just 40. Kafka was a prolific writer and spent most of his free time in writing. However, he did not have the guts to publish his major writing during his lifetime and they were published after his death. 

He wanted to be a writer but his father preferred him to be a businessman. Unable to make a living with writing alone Kafka worked from morning to noon. He mixed with people easily but not with women. 

Kafka was tortured by sexual desires and his life was full of incessant womanising. He was filled with a fear of sexual failure. Kafka's letters and diaries expressed homoerotic desires. Kafka was an accomplished swimmer, rider and rower. 

Nowadays, Kafka is read all over the world. In Germany, young people read him at school as part of the curriculum. 

In India, he is known in intellectual circles, and he's also popular in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and many other countries.

Numerous international writers refer to Kafka in their own novels and see him as one of the most important modern authors of the 20th century. Colombian writer and Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who died in 2014, even said that it was reading Kafka's novel "The Metamorphosis" that inspired him to write his own books.

Kafka's particular sensibility also lives on through the adjective "Kafkaesque," which can be found in many languages (and not just English) including German,  Korean, Turkish, French, Japanese, Russian, and Italian. The term describes something that seems unfathomably threatening — absurd, bizarre, and inexplicable.

Kafka dealt with timeless themes in his stories, such as bureaucracy and dealing with authority — or rather, the feeling of being at its mercy.

Kafka's stories mostly revolve around human experiences. They poetically describe the feeling of being lost, alone, and helpless in this world. All these feelings are universal to all at least at some point in their lives. They apply as much to people then as well as now, all over the world. They are completely independent of cultural contexts or political structures. That is why Kafka is read and understood on all continents.